OK, I'll try to not post on BARACK THE CON ARTIST anymore, we all know they're all scumbag elitist NWO cronies, yes, ok. I just want to add that what will happen under his administration, he is a avowed MARXIST, so, if Bush is Tyrannical, Barack will make his dictatorship seem gentle by comparison.

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.
And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.
It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.
"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.
In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.
In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).
Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.
It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.
Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.
Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.
Among his proposed "investments":
• "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.
• "Free" college tuition.
• "Universal national service" (a la Havana).
• "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").
• "Free" job training (even for criminals).
• "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).
• "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.
• More subsidized public housing.
• A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."
• And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.
His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.
That's just for starters — first-term stuff.
Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.
You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.
But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?
Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.
The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.
A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."
As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.
"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**."
After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.
His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.
The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.
After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.
While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.
(A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)
Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.
As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."
His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."
"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."
Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.
(Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)
In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.
With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.
Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.
(Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)
With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."
He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.
Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."
He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.
Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.
Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.
The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.
But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.
Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.
Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.

This is for all the STUPID (fill in blank) Socialist/Communist who voted and or supported Obama. How does it feel now?

I am one of a handful of bloggers/posters on the web to lay out ALL HIS/HANDLERS Agenda up until I stopped a year ago or so.{ NSA } Look at how Obama has TOTALLY DESTROYED the" Health Care Industry" in America, just for starters.

Thanks to the Net, the young/old foolish wide eyed Zombie Socialist of America are now seeing the "Fruits of Obama" wither on the vine.

By the way, you ain't seen nothing yet! Last year 6+ million people lost there private health insurance because of ObamaCare, which decoded means DEATHCARE FOR AMERIKA! This year it is estimated that at least 80 to 100 million people who are getting health insurance through there employers will LOSE IT because of skyrocketing cost all due to Obama Care.Of course people like me told you this a full two years before it even became law, but Wait! The Master Plan all along along was to....to be continued.
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How Roberts Was Blackmailed To Support ObamaCareMany of us have questioned what caused*Roberts* to switch his vote on ObamaCare at the last minute, as reported by CBS, and doing so,* so late that the Conservative Justices were forced to rewrite their majority opinion to be minority dissent. These facts may answer that question.*In 2000 Justice Roberts and his wife Jane adopted two children. Initially it was apparent that the adoptions were "from a Latin American country", but over time it has become apparent that the adopted children were not Latin American, but were Irish.* Why this matters will become evident.In 2005 the NY Times began investigating Roberts life as a matter of his nomination to the Supreme Court by George Bush.* The Times was shortly accused of trying to unseal the adoption papers and intending to violate* the anonymity of the adoption process... however there is more to the story.Drudge did an article in 2005http://patterico.com/2005/08/04/drudge-says-new-york-times-is-investigating-robertss-adoption-records/* * * * * * The NEW YORK TIMES is looking into the adoption records of the children of Supreme Court Nominee John G. Roberts, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.* * * * * * The TIMES has investigative reporter Glen Justice hot on the case to investigate the status of adoption records of Judge Roberts’ two young children, Josie age 5 and Jack age 4, a top source reveals.* * * * * * Judge Roberts and his wife Jane adopted the children when they each were infants.* * * * * * Both children were adopted from Latin America.* * * * * * A TIMES insider claims the look into the adoption papers are part of the paper’s “standard background check.”* * * * * * Bill Borders, NYT senior editor, explains: “Our reporters made initial inquiries about the adoptions, as they did about many other aspects of his background. They did so with great care, understanding the sensitivity of the issue.”

Roberts Donated Help to Gay Rights Case

In 1996, activists won a landmark anti-bias ruling with the aid of the high court nominee.

August 04, 2005|Richard A. Serrano*|*Times Staff WriterEmailShareWASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked behind the scenes for gay rights activists, and his legal expertise helped them persuade the Supreme Court to issue a landmark 1996 ruling protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

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Nothing less than the fate of the United States rests on this decision

Obamacare is*unpopular. It’s becoming*more unpopular*with the uninsured.Scott Pruitt, Attorney General of the state of Oklahoma,*filed a lawsuit*against Kathleen Sibelius over the implementation of Obamacare.In an*article*in last month’s WSJ, he explained why:While the president’s health law is vast and extraordinarily complex, it is in one respect very simple. Subsidies are only to be made available, and tax penalties for not signing up for health insurance are only to be assessed, in states that create their own health-care exchange. The IRS, however, is attempting to enforce tax penalties in all states—including Oklahoma and the majority of the other states that have declined to create their own exchanges. Citizens and businesses in these states must use the federal exchange instead.

A local news station brings viewers inside one Pennsylvania company as the employees there learn about their new health care plans under Obamacare:

Look at the numbers," says the reporter of two employees. "Jeff and Dave used to have a $1,250 deductible. Since Obamacare went into effect, it's now jumped 60 percent to $2,000. That's nothing compared to Brian, Kristi, and Judy who have kids. they are going to pay twice that, four grand." The reporter adds that co-pays are being increased, too."I don't know how President Obama thinks he's helping us because we can't afford this, we can't afford to pay these co-pays, to pay these deductibles on what we're making," says one of the workers.Another worker adds, "They call it the affordable health plan. There's nothing affordable about it. I can't afford it."

The president and his Democratic allies are finding it harder to make people buy insurance than they’d expected. Will Obamacare’s individual mandate survive?Last month, the administration announced that anyone with a canceled 2013 individual insurance plan would be exempt from the “individual-responsibility requirement” this year, and would be allowed to buy the catastrophe-only insurance previously offered to those age 30 or under.This exemption is likely only the first of many. How, for one, can the administration exempt people who had insurance last year but not exempt people who were uninsured because they couldn’t afford coverage?Obamacare’s architects were always ambivalent about the mandate. They knew compulsion was necessary to make their system work — but, fearing a backlash, opted for a fairly weak penalty for those who didn’t obey. Oops: They wound up with a mandate that still provokes resentment, yet probably won’t work.The US Supreme Court weakened the mandate even as it was saving Obamacare. The law’s authors hoped that the mandate would create the perception that insurance enrollment is now obligatory, but the high court made it clear that Congress has no authority to institute such a requirement. The justices ruled that the mandate could stand only as an optional tax, not as a fine for noncompliance.So you’re not breaking the law by not buying (overpriced) Obamacare-compliant insurance; you’re just making the legal choice to pay the tax instead.And that tax will generally be far lower than Obamacare premiums. That’s the clear conclusion of a new study by the 2017 Project, which compares premiums in the Obamacare exchanges in the 50 most populous US counties to the tax that households could pay instead.This year, that tax equals the greater of two numbers: 1) $95 per adult in a household, plus half of that amount for each child, up to $285 for an entire household, or 2) 1 percent of household income in excess of the tax-filing threshold ($10,150 for singles, and $20,300 for married couples).So, for instance, a 31-year-old single man making $30,000 in Columbus, Ohio faces a tax of $198.50, more than $2,000 less than the cheapest option in Ohio’s Obamacare exchange, even including his taxpayer-funded subsidy. For a 36-year-old San Diego woman making $40,000, the tax is $298.50, or nearly $2,400 less than the cheapest policy on the California exchange. She’s not eligible for a subsidy.Obamacare can’t work if the young and healthy don’t sign up in large numbers — yet the law creates a clear incentive for them to opt out.There’s more: The law also guarantees that you can always choose to buy during the next annual enrollment period — so if you fall seriously ill and find that Obamacare has become a better investment, you can buy it then.The Obamacare law thus made insurance a less valuable product for most people, even as it pushed up the cost of buying it.The coercion of the individual mandate was supposed to balance the equation, but it’s far too weak to do so — and it’s getting weaker each time the administration proclaims another exemption.Yes, the tax for opting out is scheduled to rise in coming years. In 2015 and 2016, the tax rate for those paying based on their household income will rise to 2.0 and 2.5 percent, respectively. But many middle-income families will still find that cheaper than buying Obamacare insurance.

Fraudsters on the inside, hackers on the outside. Here we are, stuck in the middle with the security nightmare called Obamacare. Can it get any worse? Yes, it can.

After the spectacular website crashes during last fall’s federal-health-insurance-exchange rollout, enrollees will soon wish the entire system had stayed down and dead. “404 Error” messages and convicted-felon Obamacare navigators may be the least of our health-care tech problems now. The latest? U.S. intelligence agencies notified the Department of Health and Human Services last week that the HealthCare.gov infrastructure could be infected with malicious code.

Who’s responsible? Washington Free Beacon national-security reporter Bill Gertz writes that U.S. officials have “warned that programmers in Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, were suspected” of possible sabotage. A government tech bureaucrat in the Belarusian regime bragged last summer on Russian radio that HHS is “one of our clients” and that “we are helping Obama complete his insurance reform.”

Gulp. When an authoritarian minion from the country known as “Europe’s last dictatorship” boasts about “helping” the Obama White House, be afraid. One of our intel people spelled it out for Gertz: “The U.S. Affordable Care Act software was written in part in Belarus by software developers under state control, and that makes the software a potential target for cyber attacks.”

No kidding. The friends of Vladimir Putin are not our friends. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that Belarus and other Eastern European hacking gangs have been at the center of several recent international cybercrimes. These aren’t merely schemes to steal credit-card numbers or vandalize websites with annoying graffiti. They’re acts of espionage and sabotage — like using malware in a phishing scheme aimed at White House employees to gather military intelligence and pilfer sensitive government documents.

It’s not just the federal health-care system’s problem. Former Obamacare website contractor CGI still holds dozens of contracts with other federal agencies and state governments worth billions of dollars — and wide access to health and financial data. In my state of Colorado, for example, CGI has a $78 million contract to “modernize, host and manage” the state’s financial system. Have they checked to see whether Belarus hackers are standing by?

For their part, Obamacare officials are making their usual “don’t worry about it, the problem’s under control” noises. But we already know the problem is far out of control. Last month, GOP oversight hearings exposed persistent failures by Obamacare overseers to fix security lapses.

Former most-wanted cybercriminal Kevin Mitnick concluded in a letter to Capitol Hill: “It’s shameful the team that built the Healthcare.gov site implemented minimal, if any, security best practices to mitigate the significant risk of a system compromise.” If the latest warnings from our intel agencies are any indication, it appears that Obamacare Keystone Kops didn’t just leave out security protections, but also may have allowed foreign programmers to write in cyber-traps.

David Kennedy, head of computer-security consulting firm TrustedSec LLC and a former cybersecurity official with the National Security Agency and the U.S. Marine Corps, warned that “HealthCare.gov is not secure today” and said nothing had changed since he gave Congress that assessment two months before. Among the vulnerabilities that the Obama administration still hasn’t fixed:

TrustedSec “identified the ability to enumerate user information (first, last, email, user id, profile, etc.) through one of the sub-sites that directly integrates into the healthcare.gov website.”

“Tens of thousands of user-based data appears to be vulnerable on the specified website and has not been addressed. There are a number of other exposures that have been reported privately that continue to expose users of the healthcare.gov website.”

Another exposure identified is “the ability to perform an open redirect.” In fact, “there are multiple open redirects still vulnerable on the healthcare.gov website and supporting sub-sites.” What this means is that “an attacker can send a targeted email to an individual that has signed up for healthcare.gov or is looking to and have it appear valid and legitimate and originate from the healthcare.gov website.” These can open avenues so that victims click on links “redirecting to a malicious website that hacks the computer and takes complete control over it.”

seven weeks of open enrollment to go, ObamaCare enrollment — and payments — have slowed to a near-crawl in some states.Minnesota's exchange enrollment goal of 67,000 seemed within reach on Jan. 4, when signups stood at 25,860.But after surging by more than 4,000 per week in the prior five weeks, signups collapsed back to November's pace of less than 700 per week.As of Feb. 1, Nevada had just 14,999 paid enrollees — vs. the state's March 31 goal of 115,000.Washington state, meanwhile, was slightly more than halfway to its goal of 340,000 signups — but only 88,071 had paid as of Feb. 1.The January data available from a handful of states raise new doubts about whether ObamaCare's downgraded first-year prospects are still too optimistic.Further, a spotty payment rate (50% in Washington and 66% in Nevada) creates a risk that the demographics of the paid exchange population may be older — and possibly sicker — than even the national signup data have signaled.Health care consultant Robert Laszewski wrote that he believes about 20% of*ObamaCare enrollees haven't paid. The administration said that exchange signups hit the 3 million mark around Jan. 23 — up from 2.2 million on Dec. 28. Laszewski figures the paid total through Feb. 1 will likely be about 2.5 million.More will be known about how pervasive these trends are when the Obama administration releases January data for all of the exchanges in coming days.Late January SlumpBut January data from New York, Colorado, Maryland and Kentucky (easily accessible via*acasignups.net) all suggest that the momentum which carried from December into January substantially faded in the second half of the month.To some extent, this isn't surprising. Those who missed the deadline for January coverage — some due to technical glitches — would have been expected to try to complete enrollment by Jan. 15 to attain coverage effective Feb. 1.But the extent of the drop-off in signups in states like Nevada,*Minnesota*and*Maryland*that have made little progress toward their goals does highlight an important question: Is demand lagging mainly because of informational hurdles — or because the subsidies and policies aren't well designed to attract broad participation?No state has provided as much detail about its enrollment through Feb. 1 as Minnesota, and the details are somewhat concerning. (The state counts people who have completed their application and chosen a payment method.)Minnesota Goes 'Platinum'Only 21% of signups were in the key 18-34 demographic vs. 35% ages 55 to 64. Minnesota officials have been taken by surprise at the share of people signing up for ObamaCare's richest "platinum" coverage, which reimburses 90% of the covered group's qualifying expenses.Fully 29% have signed up for low-deductible platinum policies — compared to a projection of 5%. Such policies would tend to be favored by people who want to guard against high medical expenses, while someone expecting minimal costs might go for a high-deductible bronze plan.Minnesota is different than other states because households earning less than 200% of the poverty level qualify for MinnesotaCare, meaning they don't go through the exchanges.Thus, the lack of participation in ObamaCare in the state is among those earning more than 200% of poverty ($23,095 for a single person).This shouldn't be unexpected. Just above that level, an individual would have to pay about 6.3% of income ($1,500) to buy a silver policy with a significant deductible. The idea of spending less up front to buy a bronze plan also has a drawback — a typical deductible of $4,000 to $5,000 before benefits kick in.Some experts have predicted a late March enrollment surge, as procrastinators decide to attain coverage to avoid going uninsured for eight months or having to pay the mandate tax penalty — 1% of income in the first year.But there are reasons to be skeptical. The precedent they cite is RomneyCare's Massachusetts rollout in 2007, but coverage there carried no deductible for up to 300% of the poverty level. Nor is it clear how aware people are of the individual mandate, which only got attention recently when the White House delayed it in December for those with canceled policies.Some policy analysts expect the Obama administration to suspend the individual mandate in 2014 for for everyone, once the March 31 deadline is passed.Read More At Investor's Business Daily:*http://news.investors.com/politics-o...WxOB0QF*Follow us:*@IBDinvestors on Twitter*|*InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook

The*court’s ruling today in*Halbig v. Sebelius*delivers a major blow to the states that chose not to participate in the Obamacare insurance exchange program. It is also a blow to the small businesses, employees and individuals who live in those states as well. In upholding this IRS regulation that is contrary to the law enacted by Congress, this decision guts the choice made by a majority of the states to stay out of the exchange program. It imposes Obamacare penalties on employers and on many individuals in those states, penalties that Congress never authorized, putting their livelihoods and the jobs of their employees at risk. Worst of all, it gives a stamp of approval to the Administration’s attempt to substitute its version of Obamacare for the law that Congress enacted.The court does all this despite its own finding that our arguments were supported by, in its words, “the plain language” of the law’s key provision regarding state-established exchanges.* And by erasing the distinction between functions carried out by states and functions carried out by the federal government on behalf of states, the ruling undercuts some basic aspects of federalism. We have appealed this decision, and will shortly move to expedite the appeal.> View more about the lawsuit at*cei.org/obamacare

Good morning folks,How embarrassing is this for President Obama and Senate Democrats?* As the enrollment period for ObamaCare sputters to a close, it turns out that in many key 2014 battleground states, more people received health care cancellation notices than have actually signed up under ObamaCare (and it wasn’t really close).* Have a look:

North Carolina: 160,161 North Carolinians had*selected*an ObamaCare plan as of 2/1/14.* According to the NC department of insurance, 473,724 residents*received insurance cancellation*letters thanks to ObamaCare.
Colorado: 68,454 Coloradans had*selected*an ObamaCare plan as of 2/1/14.* According to the Colorado Division Of insurance, 335,484 residentsreceived insurance cancellation*letters thanks to ObamaCare.
Michigan: 112,013 Michiganders had*selected*an ObamaCare plan as of 2/1/14.* According to the Associated Press, 225,000 residentsreceived insurance cancellation*letters thanks to ObamaCare.
Oregon: 33,808 Oregonians hadselected*an ObamaCare plan as of 2/1/14.* According to the Associated Press, 145,000 residents*received insurance cancellation*letters thanks to ObamaCare.
Louisiana: 32,864 Louisianans had*selected*an ObamaCare plan as of 2/1/14.* According to the Louisiana Insurance Commissioner, more than 92,739*residents received insurance cancellation*letters thanks to ObamaCare.
New Hampshire: 16,863 Granite Staters had*selected*an ObamaCare plan as of 2/1/14.* According to reports, more than* 22,000 residents*received insurance cancellation*letters thanks to ObamaCare.

We’re not mathematicians, but it sure appears that in these pivotal states, 371,780 men and women signed up for ObamaCare while a whopping 1,293,947 people received notices that their health care plans were being canceled thanks to the law.* OUCH.* It begs the question, how many of the people who signed up for ObamaCare did so because their plans were canceled? In other words, how many of the 424,163 actually got coverage for the first time?“So many of the promises Democrats like Mark Udall, Gary Peters and Kay Hagan repeatedly made about ObamaCare have proven false, and now it turns out that far more families and workers had their health insurance cancelled than signed up for ObamaCare – a total embarrassment for Democrats and President Obama.* Over the last few months, Americans have learned that ObamaCare means higher costs, cancelled health care policies, and fewer hours for workers across the country. They’ve also realized that Democrats weren’t being honest about ObamaCare five years ago and they’re still not shooting straight today when talking about “fixing” the disastrous law. As a result, voters no longer trust them or their judgment.* Democrats have a credibility problem.Seize the day,Brad Dayspring@BDayspringBrook Hougesen@Brook_H

If you've been putting off shopping for health insurance for 2014, beware that you'll miss your chance if you wait too long.Open enrollment -- the time when you can purchase*an individual or individual family health plan*for this year -- will end March 31. This open enrollment period does not apply to people who buy their health insurance through work; your employer will still hold its own open enrollment period, usually in the fall.For those seeking individual plans, if you haven't bought a health plan by end of the day on March 31, then you'll have to wait until the next open enrollment period, unless you have a special circumstance, such as losing coverage at work or having a baby, and qualify for "special enrollment."The open enrollment for*2015 health plans*is set to run from Nov. 15, 2014, through Jan. 15, 2015.

You can enroll in Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, state and federal insurance programs for low-income families, at any time during the year -- but only if your income is low enough to qualify.Although a limited open enrollment period is customary for people covered by Medicare and for employees enrolling in health plans at work, it's a new concept for the individual health insurance market.A new way of doing thingsBefore this year, you could shop for an individual health plan at any time. But starting with 2014 health plans you're limited to purchasing coverage during the open enrollment period, which began Oct. 1, 2013."We caution consumers that it may take a while to get through the enrollment process, so they should start it as soon as they can," says Cheryl Fish-Parcham, deputy director of health policy at Families USA, a health care advocacy group.Through March 31, you can buy a health plan directly from an insurance company, health insurance agent, insurance website or through the government-run marketplace in your state. If you qualify for tax credits or cost-saving subsidies to make coverage more affordable, you must enroll through the government-run marketplace to get them.Health policy experts expect a rush to buy coverage as the open enrollment deadline nears, much as there was a surge at the end of December to buy coverage to begin Jan. 1."As there is tremendous media attention on that date, we'll see a similar phenomenon in March," says Sara Collins, vice president for health care coverage and access at the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that supports an improved health care system.A Commonwealth Fund survey conducted in December 2013 found that 59 percent of people potentially eligible for coverage who had not yet enrolled in health insurance said they were likely to try to enroll in a plan or find out if they were eligible for financial help by the end of March.What's the deal with open enrollment?It's no coincidence that an open enrollment period was introduced as part of the Affordable Care Act. Starting this year, individual health plans must cover a set of standard benefits, and insurers cannot deny coverage or charge higher premiums for people with health conditions. The Affordable Care Act also requires almost everyone to have insurance this year.

A time period for enrollment was set to prevent people from waiting until they got sick to buy coverage, Collins says. Health insurers need a large pool of people -- not just those with illnesses - to buy coverage in order to spread risk and keep premiums low.If you miss the March 31 deadline to purchase coverage for 2014, you could get another chance to enroll if you have a special circumstance, known as a "qualifying life event." In most cases you have 60 days after the event to enroll.Those events include:Getting marriedHaving or adopting a childPermanently moving to a new area that offers different health plansLosing other health coverage because of job loss, divorce, loss of eligibility for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, expiration of COBRA coverage or decertification of a health plan. (A plan is decertified if it no longer meets federal and state standards for health plans.) Losing coverage because you didn't pay the premiums does not qualify you for special enrollment.A change in your household that affects eligibility for tax credits or cost-sharing subsidies, if you're already enrolled in a marketplace plan.There will be a few plans available between March and November. Some insurers will still offer short-term and temporary health plans.This year's open enrollment period was purposely set longer to give the marketplaces, insurers and the public time to come to terms with the new rules.More from Insure.com:How to buy individual health insuranceCustomer satisfaction ratings of health insurance companiesHow to buy health insurance before March 31, 2014

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What to Know About the March 31 Health Insurance Deadline

Obamacare open enrollment ends this month. Here's what you need to know if you haven't signed up.

the March 31 enrollment deadline approaches to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, many consumers may be thinking, “another month, another Obamacare deadline.” But this date will be a defining one for consumers without affordable health insurance, as well as for the law’s critics and advocates. The March deadline will mark the end of the open enrollment period for consumers looking to purchase health insurance plans on the federal health insurance marketplace. After March 31, Americans without health care plans will have to pay theObamacare penalty. For the Obama administration, the enrollment numbers on that date will help to gauge the early impact of the president's signature health care law. Things are looking up since OctoberSome of the biggest criticism the Obama administration has faced since the law took effect has been centered on the botched rollout of healthcare.gov. The online marketplace has beenplagued with technical issues since it launched on Oct. 1, prompting outcry from both consumers and lawmakers. Users complained of outages, slow response times, error messages and system crashes. Consumers can expect a relatively smooth experience on the site now, though the administration has admitted that issues still persist. In December, the White House completed a series of fixes that allows the site to handle up to 50,000 users at once, and the system was working 90 percent of the time, according to a Health and Human Services report. Furthermore, about 4 million Americans have enrolled in health insurance plans through the federal and state exchanges since Oct. 1, the administration announced last week. This is a big jump from the approximately 106,000 Americans who enrolled in plans during the first month the online marketplace was open, signaling a turnaround from the earlier technical challenges with healthcare.gov and many of the state marketplace sites. Still a long way to goStill, the recent enrollment figures don’t come close to the 7 million Americans the White House originally projected would sign up for health care before the March 31 deadline. The Congressional Budget Office recently modified the estimation to 6 million, citing the glitches in the online marketplace.However, health care experts say there will likely be an increase in enrollment as the deadline nears, and last-minute shoppers search for plans.Another changing deadline? The enrollment deadline could be extended again for any number of reasons. The administration previously pushed back the deadline for those enrolling in coverage that would start on New Year’s Day from Dec. 15 to Dec. 23. Then, on Dec. 23, it extended the deadline another 24 hours. It has also extended deadlines for those with pre-existing conditions, as well as the employer mandate, a key provision of the law. In this case, employers with 50 to 99 employees were granted another year before they have to offer health insurance to workers. There’s a strong suspicion among Americans that the deadline may be pushed back again. In a January poll by Bankrate, about 62 percent of more than 1,000 respondents believed the March 31 deadline would be extended. Only 29 percent said they believed it would stand. Still, there’s much confusion about what the deadline actually means. Roughly 55 percent of Americans don’t know that March 31 is the cutoff date to purchase health insurance under the individual mandate provision of the law, according to the poll. Missing the deadlineDon’t be caught off guard about the consequences of missing the deadline. After March 31, consumers looking to purchase plans through the marketplace won’t be able to do so until open enrollment begins again in October. If you miss the deadline, you can purchase insurance outside of the marketplace at any time – but be aware that you won’t receive any premium subsidies(think “discounts”), and you will likely be subject to a penalty for the time you were uninsured. If you are without coverage come March 31, you may face a penalty on your 2014 tax return. The fine will be $95 per adult and $47.50 per child or 1 percent of your household income, whichever is greater. In 2015, that will increase to $325 per adult or 2 percent of income.*

The rear doors of the white van, striped in red and blue, were wrapped in yellow with black text in Spanish which translated in English to:You can still subscribe to ObamacareApply today!800 - 419-6318Qualify and receive callsTotally freeA busy signal was the only response to attempts to call the number advertised repeatedly for over an hour this morning. However, Drudge also posted a photo of some of the targets for the mobile Obamacare ads seated in a large room with Obamacare signs.Drudge struck a compassionate tone as he included a cryptic reference to the presidential elections of 2016 in his post. Drudge wrote, "Watched as they lined up for Obamacare this morning in Miami. Warehouse setting, sad faces. No English. Hillary'16.*pic.twitter.com/DeG6ycsAdE."Over on his*Drudge Report*page, amid a constant storyboard of articles focusing on President Obama's signature legislation, the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA), an article written by one of his two additional editors, Joseph Curl, was included yesterday. Curl's conclusion was, that "Obamacare is already finished before it started," because although Democrats and the president sold the concept of the need for insurance reform based on "46 million uninsured," less than five million have now signed up for Obamacare as the deadline for open enrollment looms, ending March 31. (Refer to:*Drudge editor urges American revolt: 'Take to the street' for 'real change')Numerous reports have been made about the effort by the Obama administration to encourage*Latinos*to sign up for Obamacare.*According to Politico, of the large numbers of uninsured Latinos residing in California, Florida and Texas, nearly one in three Latinos is uninsured, a higher proportion than the national rate. The Obama administration has estimated approximately 10 million Latinos, who must be citizens or legal residents to get benefits, are eligible for coverage in those exchanges. It is also accepted fact that most will be eligible to receive premium subsidies as well.It was December before the Spanish language site,*CuidadoDeSalud.gov,*was even launched. Then attacks were quickly made claiming the site was riddled with translation errors and applicants still couldn't browse plan options in Spanish.Attempts to reach the Latino population have not been limited to the mobile ad which Drudge referenced. Outreach has included navigators and volunteers working in-person plus media outreach and community town halls. Still, tapping this population has proved difficult and across the board, "advocates of the law don’t expect enrollment among Spanish speakers to be high in the first year."Matt Drudge, himself, has vowed that he was not signing up for Obamacare. Drudge referred to the tax penalty as "Monopoly money," a comment which quickly drewangry responses. Among those who questioned his meaning, Ezra Klein wanted to know, "Are you going to be unisured?"

First lady Michelle Obama returned to Miami for the second time in two weeks, stopping at the Jessie Trice Community Health Center Wednesday to encourage people to enroll in an insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act.With less than four weeks left to enroll by the March 31 deadline, the Obama administration’s outreach and enrollment efforts have kicked into high gear with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other high-profile White House officials fanning out across the country.In Miami, Michelle Obama joked that she just happened to be in the neighborhood and then spoke about getting people — especially young people and minorities — enrolled.“In the African-American community, unfortunately, one in five of us are not insured,” she said, “and the numbers are no better in the Hispanic community.’’Obama added that federally qualified health centers, such as the Jessie Trice Center, will play a key role in the future.“Because of your work,’’ she said, “we've got four million people who have signed up for healthcare, and that is a milestone.’’The first lady said that the average adult pays less than $100 a month for health insurance under the ACA.“That's a pair of gym shoes. That's less than a cell phone bill,” she said.Obama walked around speaking with four Certified Application Counselors, who sat at tables with individuals already enrolled in health plans and four others who had yet to sign up.The counselors sat with computers, sifted through paperwork and helped consumers through the enrollment process on the healthcare.gov website.Obama spoke with one counselor, Paul Salazar, who said it takes about 20 minutes to sign up one person. Obama stressed that those who have signed up should encourage others to do the same.She also spoke to Vernon Twyne, who had already enrolled in a health plan, and Terry Rutherford, who was signing up Wednesday. Both said they did not have health coverage before the ACA passed.The first lady greeted Rutherford with a hug and kiss and thanked Suzy Diogene, the counselor working with Rutherford, for “changing lives.”“No one in this country should have to go without insurance, and now you don't have to,” Obama said.The first lady also spoke to Allen Zullinger, a law student at Florida International University, who said he signed up for insurance after an automobile collision last December.“Young people, you are not invincible,” Obama said. “Mr. Allen got hit by a car; he is now insured.”With that, the first lady thanked the group for letting her “intrude” and then left.Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/0...#storylink=cpy

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Shocker: Federal government’s fiscal deterioration almost 5 times official deficit

POSTED AT 8:01 PM ON MARCH 5, 2014 BY DUSTIN SIGGINS

In Fiscal Year 2013, the official federal deficit was $680 billion. Liberals have cheered this drop while subsequently ignoring how this deficit is both larger than all of Bush’s pre-recession deficits*and*is expected to grow dramatically over the next several decades.However, the Treasury Department’s annual report on the finances of the U.S. federal government shows that not only is $680 billion an incomplete measure of the federal government’s finances, it’s off by nearly a factor of five.

Quote:

From Just Facts Daily:The U.S. Treasury has just released its annual “Financial Report of the United States Government,” which provides an account of the federal government’s finances using accounting standards like those that the government*requiresof large corporations. Because the federal budget is not bound by these standards, it does not have to account for all of its fiscal obligations.For example, the Treasury report reveals that the federal government owes $6.5 trillion in retirement and health benefits to federal employees and veterans. This legal responsibility amounts to $53,000 for every*household*in the United States, but none of these liabilities are reflected in the 2013 budget deficit or national debt.….During the federal government’s 2013 fiscal year, the official federal deficit was*$680 billion, but this comprehensive accounting reveals that the federal government’s fiscal position deteriorated by $3.3 trillion or an average of $27,000 for every household in the U.S.

2015. They will have to provide coverage to 95% of full-time workers in 2016.The requirement that companies with more than 50 full-time workers provide insurance or pay a fine is designed to prevent firms from dropping health benefits once the government offers subsidies to help individuals buy coverage.The law's authors worried that firms would be tempted to stop offering coverage, shifting the cost of healthcare to the government.Under the law, large employers that do not provide insurance will be fined $2,000 per employee beyond the first 30 employees.The new regulations are almost certain to provide new fuel to Republican critics of the law, who have charged repeatedly that the administration has exceeded its authority in selectively implementing parts of the law.But administration officials said Monday that the law allows such adjustments.“The secretary has very broad authority to implement the tax law in a way that benefits tax administration, and we think the phase-in approach really is a way to administer the law better and enhance overall compliance,” a senior Treasury Department official said.

ObamaCare's implementers continue to roam the battlefield and shoot their own wounded, and the latest casualty is the core of the Affordable Care Act—the individual mandate. To wit, last week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty.This latest political reconstruction has received zero media notice, and the Health and Human Services Department didn't think the details were worth discussing in a conference call, press materials or fact sheet. Instead, the mandate suspension was buried in an unrelated rule that was meant to preserve some health plans that don't comply with ObamaCare benefit and redistribution mandates. Our sources only noticed the change this week.

That seven-page*technical bulletin*includes a paragraph and footnote that casually mention that a rule in a separate December 2013 bulletin would be extended for two more years, until 2016. Lo and behold, it turns out this*second rule, which was supposed to last for only a year, allows Americans whose coverage was cancelled to opt out of the mandate altogether.In 2013, HHS decided that ObamaCare's wave of policy terminations qualified as a "hardship" that entitled people to a special type of coverage designed for people under age 30 or a mandate exemption. HHS originally defined and reserved hardship exemptions for the truly down and out such as battered women, the evicted and bankrupts.But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable."

This lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person's belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. But people can also qualify for hardships for the unspecified nonreason that "you experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance," which only requires "documentation if possible." And yet another waiver is available to those who say they are merely unable to afford coverage, regardless of their prior insurance. In a word, these shifting legal benchmarks offer an exemption to everyone who conceivably wants one.Keep in mind that the White House argued at the Supreme Court that the individual mandate to buy insurance was indispensable to the law's success, and President*Obamacontinues to say he'd veto the bipartisan bills that would delay or repeal it. So why are ObamaCare liberals silently gutting their own creation now?

The answers are the implementation fiasco and politics. HHS revealed Tuesday that only 940,000 people signed up for an ObamaCare plan in February, bringing the total to about 4.2 million, well below the original 5.7 million projection. The predicted "surge" of young beneficiaries isn't materializing even as the end-of-March deadline approaches, and enrollment decelerated in February.Meanwhile, a McKinsey & Company survey reports that a mere 27% of people joining the exchanges were previously uninsured through February. The survey also found that about half of people who shopped for a plan but did not enroll said premiums were too expensive, even though 80% of this group qualify for subsidies. Some substantial share of the people ObamaCare is supposed to help say it is a bad financial value. You might even call it a hardship.

HHS is also trying to pre-empt the inevitable political blowback from the nasty 2015 tax surprise of fining the uninsured for being uninsured, which could help reopen ObamaCare if voters elect a Republican Senate this November. Keeping its mandate waiver secret for now is an attempt get past November and in the meantime sign up as many people as possible for government-subsidized health care. Our sources in the insurance industry are worried the regulatory loophole sets a mandate non-enforcement precedent, and they're probably right. The longer it is not enforced, the less likely any President will enforce it.The larger point is that there have been so many unilateral executive waivers and delays that ObamaCare must be unrecognizable to its drafters, to the extent they ever knew what the law contained.

Some young people seeking to buy health insurance are finding themselves falling into a subsidy gap that leaves them ineligible for financial assistance that was heavily advertised.Subsidies in the health law were designed to lower insurance costs for people who make around $11,000 to $46,000 a year.But for young people earning toward the higher end of that range, it's more complicated than that.*A new study*shows that in major cities, some young people fall in that salary range but don't actually qualify for government help to pay their insurance premiums.And as the Affordable Care Act barrels toward its March 31 enrollment deadline, insurers need people ages 18 to 34 to sign up.Brian Loughnane is 26 and was making $36,000 a year when he looked for a policy onHealthCare.gov*in December.